Re: RPG 'CPAN' site

[boldt@xxxxxxxxxx]

David wrote:
> A couple of points on your response to Buck. It is not "David's" site.
>
> That is the most important part. I am currently the only administrator,

Since you're the "administrator", that kind of makes it
"your" site!  But I accept your point that it's meant to be
a collaborative effort.

> but I would welcome the help and guidance of others. The
> iSeries-toolkit site strives to supply the foundation for an
> application
> framework. It could easily support vertical applications.  If you
> have an interest rate computation or other useful routines, I will
> give you developer access and let you check it in.
>
> I would hate to see the open-source initiative splinter at this point.
>
> And would urge you and Bob to consider working together with
> the existing open-source community. It would take a lot of work
> just to duplicate what Source Forge offers.

I think there's still a difference between what SourceForge
offers and what an "RPG Archive" site could offer.  Look at
CPAN (for Perl, at <http://www.cpan.org/>) or the Vaults of
Parnassus (for Python, at <http://www.vex.net/parnassus/>).
CPAN is an archive of much Perl code.  VoP is an index site
for Python code.  Both provide search and locate capabilities.

On the other hand, SourceForge is a useful tool for the
collaborative development of software.  But not all open-
source code needs that model of development.  Some code can be
developed informally by one or two people, other projects may
need a more formal development process.

In other words, CPAN and VoP are where you go for the stable
released versions of software, SourceForge is where you go to
develop that software.

The way I see it, an RPG archive site would be a massive
directory or archive of all freely available code where you
could go to search for and locate the code you want.  That
site may well include links to sites like SourceForge where
you could find more current (and potentially less fully
debugged) code.  It may also include links to more small
scale efforts.  Whatever.

As I said in a previous note, the ideal situation would be
that whenever anyone asks how to do some particular task in
RPG, the answer most commonly given would be "Download
package WXYZ from the 'RPG Archive of Modules and
Procedures'".

BTW, for me personally, I have neither the time nor desire to
get deeply involved with this kind of thing.  For years, I've
tried to encourage more open-source efforts among the RPG
community, but whatever happens has to be organized and
managed by the RPG community, in my opinion.  And to be
brutally honest, I'm still not entirely convinced that open
source software can make much of an impact in this community.

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com